


Show and Tell

by mydeira, Sadbhyl



Series: Responsible Adults (aka, The Menageaverse) [81]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-11
Updated: 2013-04-11
Packaged: 2017-12-08 04:36:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/757112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mydeira/pseuds/mydeira, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sadbhyl/pseuds/Sadbhyl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Who needs Beljoxa’s Eye when you have Ethan?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Show and Tell

**Author's Note:**

> Originally published September 18, 2005
> 
> Takes place during the episode Showtime.

“Oh, dear lord.”

The words were so emphatic, the tone so familiar, that Joyce had to look up from her first-of-the-year financials to confirm that Rupert wasn’t standing in her living room instead of racing around the globe in search of potential Slayers.

What she found was Ethan, sitting at the table they had set up in the back of the living room to handle the overflow of girls at mealtimes. Spread out before him were the volumes and files Rupert had liberated from the Council headquarters. He held a book open with one hand and a pen in the other, glaring down at the pad he was taking notes on. “Bloody hell,” he swore again, sounding more like himself this time.

“What is it?” Joyce stood up and went to him, resting a hand on his shoulder as she tried to make out the scrawl of notes.

He dropped his pen on the table in disgust. “It was us,” he said, drilling the heel of his hand into his eye, wiping at it before gesturing down to the books. “We did it. We weakened the line . . .”

Loud, angry voices from the dining room interrupted him. Dawn sounded indignant. “That means we shouldn't try?”

“There's that word again,” the new girl complained.

Kennedy snapped, “Hey, it's a good word.”

“Give up,” one of the younger girls, Chloe, asked desperately. “Can we do that? Surrender, I mean, so it won't kill us?”

Chairs scraped across the floor, and a moment later they saw Buffy and Willow appear in the kitchen, studying each other intensely. Concerned, Joyce went through the back hall to them, aware of Ethan following her. “What happened? What’s wrong?”

Willow looked to Buffy, who studied them for a moment, Ethan perhaps longer than Joyce, before nodding brief assent. “Mrs. Summers, can you hear me?” Willow’s voice sounded directly into her mind.

Joyce jumped. “Yes, I hear you,” she said aloud.

“Don’t talk,” Buffy chided, also in her head. “Ethan?”

“I believe I’ve discussed the etiquette of this with Willow before,” he responded sternly, but not making Joyce’s mistake of actually speaking.

“It wasn’t my fault,” Willow protested. “She started it.”

“We’re losing them,” Buffy cut her off, forestalling any further argument as Xander, Tara and finally Anya joined them. “We can’t let that happen. I’ve got to slay the NeanderVamp to get Spike out of that cave, but I need those girls to see me do it.”

“I get that,” Willow agreed, “but this isn't the best venue for a smackdown.”

Xander looked from one girl to the other. “I know just the place.”

“Good. Don’t tell me. The fewer people who know beforehand, the less chance the First has to find out.” She had entered the familiar role of commander. Turning to the others, she said, “Anya, I can’t take the chance of something happening to you and the baby. I want you and Mom to go someplace safe, Ethan’s maybe, until this is over.”

“I’ll go with them,” Ethan interjected. “You won’t want to leave them unprotected if something should go wrong.”

Buffy’s eyes narrowed, but she didn’t protest.

Ethan may be willing to submit, but Joyce found that she wasn’t. “I’m not staying behind.”

“Mom, you have to. I can’t be protecting you as well as everyone else.”

The frustration and uselessness that had been building up in her for the last few months finally found expression. “Buffy, that argument doesn’t hold and you know it. I don’t hear you suggesting leaving Dawn behind. And none of those other girls are any more capable of defending themselves than I am. They’ll be suspicious if neither of the grownups come with you. Ethan is going to protect Anya, so I’m coming with you.”

“Mom . . .”

“There’s something else you should know.” The sound of Ethan’s voice speaking aloud startled all of them. When he was certain he had everyone’s attention, he stepped forward to rest his hand on the island as though it were a lecture podium. “I’ve been going through the documents on the Harrowing that Ripper salvaged. I still don’t know how to stop it, but I know how it started.”

Everyone remained silent, as though feeling the heavy weight of his words.

“The Slayer line was compromised. The succession of calling was corrupted. When Buffy died, the succession went irrevocably to the other Slayer.” His recitation seemed eerie, an echo of Rupert’s role in this group. “But when she came back, still a Slayer with all that that entailed, the line became fragile, pulled between the two existing Slayers. That’s what allowed this to happen.”

“But Buffy was dead before and this didn’t happen,” Xander protested.

“Yes, it did,” Buffy said quietly. “When it came after Angel.”

Willow barely seemed able to breathe. “But that was so long after . . .” They still couldn’t say the word easily. “After you died. The first time.”

Ethan just nodded. “The first time, her death was so brief that even though it was enough to trigger a new Slayer, it never really allowed Buffy’s abilities to leave. There was a tension between the two, enough to allow the First to manifest faintly. It took time to summon Bringers to its service. Hence the delay between her death and its first attack. But when she came back after being gone so long, after her soul had been dispensed . . .”

“Oh my god.” Willow had gone completely white as the implication set in. Anya turned into Xander’s arms as he just stared at Ethan in horror.

“We did it,” Tara said, her soft eyes dark with sorrow. “When we brought her back. This isn’t Buffy’s fault. It’s ours.”

All the anger Joyce thought she had resolved over the events of last year and of Ethan’s involvement in it surged forward. So many girls, dead already. The girls who had made it here, most of them younger than Dawn, knowing what was coming for them and trying to be brave anyway. The girls still out there, waiting in ignorance to be saved or die, never knowing why. All because of what these five people had done.

“It doesn’t matter.”

Buffy’s cold, clipped voice cut through them all, drawing their attention back to her.

“Haven’t we learned yet how pointless it is to get trapped in the mistakes of the past? We’re supposed to learn from that, not relive it.” Her words were flat and devoid of all emotion as she looked to each of them in turn, commanding their attention. “I’m back, and I’m not going anywhere. Not now. It doesn’t matter how I got here. For all we know, if you guys hadn’t brought me back, someone else would have. This doesn’t change the situation now. If you can’t focus on what we have to do tonight, I don’t want any of you there. Understood?”

Joyce glanced at Ethan, and saw something like sorrow and regret in his eyes as he watched, not Buffy, but her, waiting for her reaction. She remembered her vow to herself of last year, to be more forbearing and not judge too quickly. She had forgiven him for past misdeeds. It wouldn’t help to drag it all back out now.

She slipped her hand into the warm strength of his, squeezing gently as she joined the others with a silent nod of support. The past couldn’t be changed. It was the future they needed to be worried about now.


End file.
